1m2aSandbox

Tuesday the three of us hit our local
library for an awesome morning of storytelling. The reader was on
fire, with props and costumes and puppets and a great sense of
timing as she worked her way through a few books. One in
particular, href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FPaper-Bag-Princess-Classic-Munsch%2Fdp%2F0920236162%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1215573261%26sr%3D8-1&tag=1mother2anoth-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325"
target="_blank">The Paper Bag Princess, was a big hit
with Maddie. It told the tale of Princess Elizabeth, whose castle
was attacked by a mean dragon; the dragon burned down the castle,
leaving her nothing to wear but a paper bag as she went in search
of her True Love Roderick, who’d been taken prisoner by the
dragon. When finally the princess found the dragon, she outsmarted
the dragon in a battle of wits and made her way to her True Love,
who had the nerve to criticize her clothing and, well, smell.
Elizabeth realized her True Love wasn’t the real deal and
went off to be happy by herself.

So I was making dinner the other day when
Brian came over with an amused look on his face. “I hear you
read Pinocchio for nap time today,” he said casually.


“Yep,” I affirmed, “I did.” I didn’t
elaborate, hoping that would be the end of the conversation. Brian
continued to study me, nearly smirking. Resigned, I put down my
spatula, faced him, and asked with absolutely no attempt at
casualness, “Did Maddie say something?”


“Let’s see,” he said, staring thoughtfully at the
ceiling. “I want to get her words down right. I believe she
said – Oh, yes, she said –and I quote –
‘Mommy read Pinocchio to me today but she left out a
lot of the words, and when I tried to correct her she shushed me
and told me not to interrupt. Mommy’s not very good at that
story and I don’t think I’ll let her read it
again.’ Does that ring a bell at all?”


Yes, I was upbraided by a three-year-old for my lack of good
reading skills.


In my defense, here’s my side of the story.

We had a fantastic three-day weekend,
everyone enjoying extra Daddy time (most of all Mommy, who is WAY
nicer in the morning when someone else is on hand to help with
getting dressed and out the door) and eating lots of ice cream.
Maddie especially wriggled excitedly like a puppy for seventy-two
hours straight, going from fun thing to fun thing, always looking
over her shoulder at Daddy. The one down side to the celebrations
– I found it difficult to explain to Maddie what all the
parties were about. Try describing fighting for independence to a
three-year-old. Heck, try explaining what a country is to a
three-year-old!

I’ve noticed that my girls are
voracious fruit-eaters over the summer – more so than during
the rest of the year. I mean, Maddie and Cora love their fruit and
eat it all day, but in the summer I find myself returning to the
grocery store at least once a week if not more, simply to stock
back up on fruit. Some of this, I know is because there’s so
much great fruit in season during the summer: oftentimes I’ll
wash a couple pints of strawberries and set them out to dry before
storing in the fridge, and Maddie will beg one berry at a time
until almost half my supply is gone, before even getting put away.
Many nights we’ll fix a bowl of mixed berries for dinner,
unable to choose between all the great in-season blackberries and
blueberries and raspberries.


Mmmm. Sounds good. But I digress.

I know I’ve mentioned before that
Cora is much more of an eat-anything-off-the-ground baby than
Maddie ever was. From the get-go, Cora would grab anything within
reach and shove it in her mouth, whereas Maddie really wasn’t
interested and didn’t have to be told twice that dirt is
icky. I did that whole spin-doctor thing parents do, looking at a
kid’s quirk in the best possible light: Oh, Cora eats
anything on the floor! That’s great – she’s just
practicing her pincer grasp! Way to go, girlie! I’m sure
she’ll stop when she can really feed herself!


Alas, that hope has not been realized.

Madeleine’s always had a fair amount
of self-confidence – it’s one of the things I love most
about her. I adore watching back video of her leaping and spinning
around the room at 2 ½ years old, yelling, “I’m
a very good dancer!” Or how about when Maddie went bowling
for the first time ever, and shouted over and over,
“I’m a champion bowler!” Getting to glimpse what
it feels like to be an uncensored kid, gloriously alive and
noncritical, is one of the great benefits of motherhood.


Over the past few weeks, though, Maddie’s taken an abrupt
turn into negativity and self-doubt. We’ll put on ballet
music and dance around for a few minutes until Maddie stops,
watches me speculatively, and says, “I can’t dance.
I’m not a very good dancer. I can’t do it. It
doesn’t look pretty.” “Oh, sweetheart,”
I’ll say, “you’re a beautiful dancer!”
“No!” she’ll cry in frustration. “I
can’t move like you do! I don’t know how to make myself
do it! I’m bad!” I’ll go on to explain that Mommy
spent several years learning how to dance like that, and that
there’s no right way to move your body joyfully. Sometimes
she’ll get back up, but more often than not the spell is
broken and the tutu comes off.

As I prepared to become a mother for the
first time, I read over and over again in books that you’re
supposed to talk constantly to your baby, even though they
don’t really understand you. When Maddie was first born and
we’d go for walks, I was very self-conscious about the whole
thing, walking down the street in New York City and talking like a
crazy lady. “Over here we have a fine example of prewar
architecture, and I understand they’ve got a 24-hour doorman
as well. And now we’re passing a bodega – that’s
where you’ll go to get milk and bread for mommy when
you’re older.”


It didn’t help that I didn’t really know how to talk to
kids.


Now, though, I jabber away constantly, pretty much completely
unaware of what I’m doing, with that refined Professional
Mommy patter down cold: “Can you stand up now like a big
girl? Look at who’s a big girl! What a great job! - Maddie,
put that down or you’re going to lose a book for naptime
– Did you see the pretty birdie outside the window?
That’s called a cardinal, and maybe it will come back so we
can see its coat! - Maddie, ok, I see, that’s fine, but keep
the water in the kitchen – Yes, Cora, a cardinal is red! What
else is red?” You get the picture.


Anyway, I’ve been talking away for over a year now to Cora,
and half of it is simply asking questions and answering them for
her. Except that over the past few weeks, something frightening has
happened.


Cora is showing signs of intelligent life.